Kindle Projections, Roadblocks and Sightings

The biggest problem is the fact that the Kindle is only available online, via the Amazon.com Website. For many consumer electronics products, potential buyers need to touch and feel the device, to pick it up and play with it, before making any kind of purchasing commitment …

Another roadblock for the Kindle is design. The company offers no alternative colors to the chalky white, which gets dirty easily and “looks cheap” according to [Rob] Enderle. He notes that the competing Sony eReader is more stylish, though it lacks many of the service components that make the Kindle popular.

Exactly who are the “sighting” monitors that are not seeing Kindles? What type of survey has the reporter conducted? It’s one thing to see people using iPhones in public places. But the early adopter of Kindles are more likely to be individuals who the reporter is not going to see on public transportation or sitting at a picnic table at lunch. I was on a flight from Orland to Nashville yesterday and two of the three people on my row had Kindles (one was mine). I guess if the reporter had walked past our aisle, she would have written a trend story that the majority of people traveling to Nashville have Kindles.

http://toc.oreilly.com Peter Brantley

Rex, I think you have to put these kinds of observations in context. Everyone is trying to figure out what markets Amazon is selling Kindles into. Nothing is scientific in isolation, yet the aggregation of anecdotes provides additional insight. See e.g. Kassia Krozser’s recent observations, http://booksquare.com/random-ebook-thoughts-from-a-jetlagged-mind/

bowerbird

who cares how many kindles have sold?

the people who own one rave about it.
and amazon is happy with the numbers.

plus lots of e-books are being moved,
according to david moynihan…

it is what it is, whether you see it
or not…

-bowerbird

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